Locomotive Butterfly Fire Door, Steamtown National Historic Site (click image to enlarge)

Nikon D810, 25 sec, f/16, 35mm, ISO 400

Notice that this image required a long exposure of 25 seconds. The butterfly door is located inside a locomotive cab that was not very well lit and surrounded by black surfaces. The museum was not crowded, so I was able to set up a tripod and capture this long exposure.

It also seems that all of the locomotive images I captured are much better in black and white instead of their normal color. This is because they were mostly black anyways, and what little color there was did not add significantly to the composition. As an instructor once said, if color does not add to the image, get rid of the color!

Steamtown National Historic Site: 41.407301° -75.671255°

Nathan Water Level Gauge, Steamtown National Historic Site (click image to enlarge)

Nikon D810, 1/25 sec, f/9.0, 38mm, ISO 200

This is another image that I composed with the idea of converting it to black and white during post processing (the first image is here).

The original of this image had a bright area on the upper left corner which was very distracting. Converting the image to black and white dampened that bright area and helped balance the background.

Also bright and shiny was the brass gauge itself. That bright spot dominated the image and prevented the eye from wandering to more interesting things. Keeping the red in the valves during the black and white conversion adds depth to the image.

Steamtown National Historic Site: 41.407301° -75.671255°

Rail Car EL C 191 Detail, Steamtown National Historic Park (click image to enlarge)

Nikon D810, 1/20 sec, f/16, 55mm, ISO 200

This is a detail image from a railcar with the markings “EL C 191” at Steamtown National Historic Site. This is actually two images focus stacked in Photoshop during post processing. The first image focused on the yellow wall of the rail car on the right; the second image focused on the corroded stanchion and wheel on the left side. The distance between these two objects was so great that I could not get the depth of field required to have both in focus with one image. This necessitated the use of focus stacking.

The color contrast between the yellow wall and the black stanchion splits the image in two, with the wheel combining them back together. Of course, wood grain, flaking paint, and rust always add visual interest.

Steamtown National Historic Site: 41.407301° -75.671255°

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